fic: "Like Most Riddles"
"Like Most Riddles"
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Rating: oh so very NC-17. My ten-year-old sister will never be allowed to think the things the characters do in this fic
Pairing: Sam/Daniel
Season: 8
Spoilers: Just general for S8
Category: PWP (Plot, what plot, Pete, what Pete? ETA: Protection, what protection? [Sam's on the pill, okay?])
Note: The first part of this fic is rated PG-13. The second part is NC-17. So if you want your sap without your smut, stop when you get to part two.
Note the Second: The headings are totally out of context quotes from Lord of the Rings.
Note the Third: Crossposted to wisdomeagle and samdanshippers
ETA Note the Fourth: Read the prequel here.
Pretentious Epigraph:
Of course! Of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer!
-Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring, "A Journey in the Dark"
Part 1: These Suspicious Days
"I think we're in love," said Daniel, sort of shyly, hitching up his jeans and adjusting his glasses unconsciously, falling into step a pace or two behind Sam.
"Really?" she said, curiously, glancing around her to make sure they were still okay.
"Well, it seems likely, doesn't it? We've been spending lots of time together..."
"Well, Daniel, we do work together--hey, watch out!"
She'd come from nowhere, the young NID-trainee, and she was light on her feet. She had a knife pressed to Daniel's throat in half a second, but Sam was a quarter of a second faster, and she knocked the knife out of DeLanie's hand, harmless. Daniel pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket and handed them to Sam, who smiled her thanks.
On their way back to the van, Daniel rubbed his throat. "I really hate the NID," he said. "We've got to get ourselves some new enemies."
Sam smiled. "Take it up with the General O'Neill."
"Yeah, I'll do that, right when I tell him that I'm leaving the SGC."
"Not much fun to talk to these days, is he?" said Sam.
"Oh, Jack's never been fun to talk to. But sitting behind a desk doesn't exactly improve him."
"I know what you mean."
"Right, and that reminds me. I think we're in love."
"Daniel, I will never understand your segues."
"That wasn't a segue. That was a hopeless attempt to get the subject back to us. Um, I'm actually rather terrified, if you hadn't noticed."
Sam took pity on him and smiled again. She was doing that a lot around Daniel, and they were more than just "amused at Daniel's antics" smiles, or even "happy to be in Daniel's company" smiles. Lately, they were more "giddy schoolgirl crush" smiles, and she knew it. But still, watching Daniel squirm for a little longer was too much to pass up. "So, you think we're in love? What gives you that idea?" she said, springing into their van so they could sit and wait for Teal'c to return with doughnuts. Then they could all bring the prisoner back to the SGC, a peace offering for General O'Neill.
"Well, we've been spending lots of time together outside work."
"We always have."
"More than usual, even. Especially since Jack's given up Thursday night dinners to take care of paperwork."
"We spend time with Teal'c, too."
"True, true." Daniel paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, and Sam rested her hand idly on the gearshift. "But have you noticed that Teal'c tends to leave early, especially when we've had something to drink."
"Hadn't noticed," said Sam, although she had.
"And then, well, last night, after the wine..."
"What happened after the wine?"
"You don't remember? We, er, well, when I woke up, we weren't wearing much."
Sam smirked to herself. "Don't remember a thing. Sorry." It didn't seem to occur to Daniel that she was playing with him. Then, it very rarely occurred to Daniel that he was being played, not even after all these years. It was sometimes the most endearing thing about him.
Daniel looked so wounded though, that Sam couldn't keep it up any longer. "Hey, kidding. I remember. I really, really remember. I oh my God remember." She tried to keep her voice light.
"So did you, uh, realize that it's not the first time we've done that?"
She shrugged. What the hell. "Of course."
Teal'c's arrival with the doughnuts and a dozen or so airmen was, Sam realized, absolutely necessary. One second longer, and she would have had her hand down Daniel's pants, NID or no, public place be damned. But Teal'c just gave them a raised eyebrow, directed one or two of the airmen as they moved DeLanie from Sam's van to their own specially equipped transport vehicle, and left them to their own devices. The whole operation took no more than a minute, but Sam felt the tension between them subside substantially.
Then, of course, Daniel had to revive it by saying, "Uh, that thing we were talking about before. What if we tried while we weren't drunk? Just a thought."
"Who knows? Maybe you'd actually manage to last longer than..."
"Oh. Uh, sorry about that."
"Well, you can make it up to me anytime."
"Honestly?" said Daniel, his voice getting slightly higher.
"Sure. Why not?"
"We should really get back to Base, shouldn't we? Tell Jack how things went down."
"Do you want to?" Sam asked, and in asking realized that of all the things she didn't want, debriefing with General O'Neill was what she dreaded most. Not only was he crankier than he had any right to be, but when they left, he always stared after them with such a pained look that it was harder and harder to ignore. Coming home from off-world, it felt (she imagined) like visiting her father in the hospital would have been: a pity visit to a wounded man.
"Not really." Daniel had answered her quite awhile ago; now he repeated himself.
"Want a drink?"
"Again, not really."
"My place, then?"
"First you've got to tell me I'm right. We are in love with each other, right?"
"Of course, Daniel. I was wondering when you'd notice."
Part 2: "Speak Friend and Enter"
Now that they'd actually said they were going to have sex, Sam found that fondling the gearshift had a whole new meaning. Especially when she noticed that Daniel was staring at her hand, mesmerized. And once his hand descended on hers, so gently, she was absolutely lost. "I have to drive," she whispered.
"That's okay," Daniel said. "I'm not stopping you."
His fingers were moving so slightly, rippling between hers, so she could feel every tendon in her hand. All right, now that just wasn't fair. She carefully removed Daniel's hand from hers, rested her hand on his thigh for half a second, then turned to face the road. There were fifteen minutes between here and her house, and she'd never before noticed exactly how long those fifteen minutes really were.
Long. They were long.
Especially (she noted out of the corner of her eye) when Daniel was fiddling with his jeans, and there wasn't a lot of loose cloth to fiddle with, and she knew he was too oblivious to be doing it on purpose, so she couldn't even complain. He was unintentionally driving her to distraction.
And then he started talking about work. About the latest society they'd unearthed, and the symbolic meanings of the 'Gate in its art and storytelling, and she realized she knew what he was talking about, that when she said, "But you have to keep in mind how far removed they are from their transplantation, that any historical basis for their myths has essentially been wiped out by hundreds of years of repression," she actually might be making a point worth making.
She could think all this, and drive, and still manage to be more sexually charged when they pulled into her driveway than she had been in years.
Before she got the door open, Daniel had an arm around her, lifting her shirt just half an inch, so that his fingers sprawled over bare skin and Sam's heart started beating a little faster.
She was glad she'd put her key-ring in her pocket--no scrambling for keys, no desperate fumbling, only key in lock and hands on skin and sliding slowly upwards. The door was open now, thank God.
She would have been amazed if they'd made it to the bedroom. As it was, they didn't make it out of the foyer. Daniel had a fascination with her shirt, and getting his hands up underneath it, and she couldn't just allow herself to be caressed, she needed to touch Daniel, to feel his skin the way he was so steadfastly feeling hers, so she twisted around in a move that Daniel obviously still wasn't expecting, even after training with Teal'c every day since he came home. He was totally taken by surprise when her left hand slipped under the waistband of his jeans, her right hand pressed to his zipper, toying with the idea of getting him undressed right then and there.
But first he had to kiss her, the way he had to touch the artifact that clearly screamed "Don't touch!" to her and Teal'c. And even though they'd admitted they were in love, Sam still felt like her lips and his lips and those lips together should be saying "Don't touch!" loud and clear. But Daniel was obviously deaf. He kissed her gently, in blatant defiance of the hands they'd slipped into each other's pants, of his obvious erection, of her now tingling clit. He was going to be gentle, was he? Going to seduce her like they hadn't been doing this (drunk, admittedly) for months, like they hadn't watched each other grow up for seven years. Well, she didn't want that.
She nipped at his lips, easing them apart, then sliding her tongue into his mouth, and it was a surprising cavern. She'd never imagined kissing him, never imagined arching her tongue against his or pressing her legs against him while she did it. She'd never imagined him being afraid to move his tongue, never imagined being able to feel the moan when her right hand finally succeeded in getting his zipper down and stroked his penis, oh so lightly. She leaned into him, into his mouth, into his chest, into his groin, as if she could give him everything she'd carried for so long and he could help her hold it.
He staggered backwards when she bit on his lips, drawing the tiniest trickle of blood. She rubbed her left hand deftly down his legs, not wanting to break the kiss but desperate for more contact, for more sensation, for more Daniel.
He was against the wall, and she liked that, liked holding him there, liked that he seemed to be unable to stop himself from sliding two surprisingly soft hands up her torso to her breasts, liked the way he danced around her breasts before finally touching them, and she groaned "harder, Daniel," and somehow wanted to add, "and that's an order," but didn't have the brainpower to do much beyond push, rub, grab, stroke, gasp.
Lots of gasping tonight. She gasped when he pinched her nipple, gasped as she squeezed his thigh in retaliation, gasped when she realized he was taller than she was, and she moaned in surprised glee when he sank gracelessly to the floor and tugged at her pants. She didn't trust his ability to get her undressed, so she unzipped her own pants, directed his hands to her underpants, and gasped the last complete English words she'd say that night. "Lick me."
And he did, so artlessly, so energetically, so desperately, his tongue twisting and stroking, peeking into her pussy as if to see if it was safe to go further, then retreating in fear. His fingers parted her lips, he was fast and rough and she was wet and aching, her back against the fake-wood wall of her foyer and her brain on a permanent vacation from all thoughts that weren't about Daniel's tongue slipping, sliding, roughly penetrating, licking her labia and her clitoris, teasing and touching and driving her to her first-ever standing-up orgasm, a bliss so certain she didn't really recover, just lolled, sated, against the wall. Daniel fell back with a shy smirk (Daniel, a study in contradictions, Daniel, brother-friend-lover-partner for planets-labs-bars-bedrooms) and tugged his jeans off his muscled legs.
While Sam recovered, Daniel jerked himself off, slowly, his hand wrapped loosely around his cock, and Sam squirmed. She slid down the wall carefully, then crawled over to Daniel, sprawled on the floor, pleasuring himself, still, for some reason, wearing his glasses. She hovered over him for a moment, then removed his glasses and placed them on an artful yet inexpensive side-table, urged him wordlessly to continue, and, with a saliva-covered finger, penetrated Daniel's anus, just slightly, just enough for him to groan and adjust himself and stroke harder, which is what she'd wanted in the first place.
Eventually she'd let him fuck her. She wanted him to fuck her. But mostly right now she wanted to watch him, wanted to see the way he got himself off, wanted to hang over him, breasts dangling, and notice the harshness of his breath and the loss of control, the harsh raspy sound he made when he hit a sensitive spot.
It wasn't the moaning that drove her over the edge. It wasn't his hand on his dick, either. It was the look in his eyes, the sad desperation, which made her think that he hadn't stopped remembering, and that nothing could make him forget. It made her want to try.
She pulled his hand away carefully, lowered herself onto his dick, letting him slide in slowly to her slick readiness. From that position he would be hard pressed to set the pace, so she started sliding, slowly at first, then faster, moving up and down his dick, twisting slightly so that she could get full sensation everywhere. She closed her eyes so she couldn't see Daniel's wide-eyed wonder, so she could just listen to his gasping, rasping moaning, so she could just feel him struggle to push into her, to match her rhythm. She fucked him quickly, but not as roughly as she wanted to, still afraid, perhaps, of injuring the civilian archeologist. When he came inside her, she smiled and jerked once, twice, quickly against him so that she came too, pushing herself over the edge, collapsing on him, realizing belatedly that he was still wearing a shirt and that his jeans were around his ankles.
She rolled off him, found a position that was almost comfortable, and spent most of the night trying to sleep, forgetting to dream, wondering what Daniel was thinking on his side of the floor.
In the morning, she fried turkey sausage and made a whole pot of coffee. The coffee wouldn't last the morning, but at least it was a start.
"Morning, Sam," said Daniel, smiling, and his smile was broad and genuine and broke her heart. "Got any coffee? I'm going to need some to face Jack's wrath."
"He's not going to be pleased, that's for sure. Coffee's in the pot."
Daniel poured himself a cup and drank it thoughtfully. "Do you think we should tell Jack?"
Sam considered this, bearing in mind the look of longing that overtook the General's face every time he bid them Godspeed in the Gateroom, his frustrated request that they not invite him to dinner anymore, the angry lie that was far too close to truth: he was too busy with paperwork and worry.
"No way we should tell him."
"Oh good," said Daniel, and he poured another cup of coffee.
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Rating: oh so very NC-17. My ten-year-old sister will never be allowed to think the things the characters do in this fic
Pairing: Sam/Daniel
Season: 8
Spoilers: Just general for S8
Category: PWP (Plot, what plot, Pete, what Pete? ETA: Protection, what protection? [Sam's on the pill, okay?])
Note: The first part of this fic is rated PG-13. The second part is NC-17. So if you want your sap without your smut, stop when you get to part two.
Note the Second: The headings are totally out of context quotes from Lord of the Rings.
Note the Third: Crossposted to wisdomeagle and samdanshippers
ETA Note the Fourth: Read the prequel here.
Pretentious Epigraph:
Of course! Of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer!
-Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring, "A Journey in the Dark"
Part 1: These Suspicious Days
"I think we're in love," said Daniel, sort of shyly, hitching up his jeans and adjusting his glasses unconsciously, falling into step a pace or two behind Sam.
"Really?" she said, curiously, glancing around her to make sure they were still okay.
"Well, it seems likely, doesn't it? We've been spending lots of time together..."
"Well, Daniel, we do work together--hey, watch out!"
She'd come from nowhere, the young NID-trainee, and she was light on her feet. She had a knife pressed to Daniel's throat in half a second, but Sam was a quarter of a second faster, and she knocked the knife out of DeLanie's hand, harmless. Daniel pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket and handed them to Sam, who smiled her thanks.
On their way back to the van, Daniel rubbed his throat. "I really hate the NID," he said. "We've got to get ourselves some new enemies."
Sam smiled. "Take it up with the General O'Neill."
"Yeah, I'll do that, right when I tell him that I'm leaving the SGC."
"Not much fun to talk to these days, is he?" said Sam.
"Oh, Jack's never been fun to talk to. But sitting behind a desk doesn't exactly improve him."
"I know what you mean."
"Right, and that reminds me. I think we're in love."
"Daniel, I will never understand your segues."
"That wasn't a segue. That was a hopeless attempt to get the subject back to us. Um, I'm actually rather terrified, if you hadn't noticed."
Sam took pity on him and smiled again. She was doing that a lot around Daniel, and they were more than just "amused at Daniel's antics" smiles, or even "happy to be in Daniel's company" smiles. Lately, they were more "giddy schoolgirl crush" smiles, and she knew it. But still, watching Daniel squirm for a little longer was too much to pass up. "So, you think we're in love? What gives you that idea?" she said, springing into their van so they could sit and wait for Teal'c to return with doughnuts. Then they could all bring the prisoner back to the SGC, a peace offering for General O'Neill.
"Well, we've been spending lots of time together outside work."
"We always have."
"More than usual, even. Especially since Jack's given up Thursday night dinners to take care of paperwork."
"We spend time with Teal'c, too."
"True, true." Daniel paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, and Sam rested her hand idly on the gearshift. "But have you noticed that Teal'c tends to leave early, especially when we've had something to drink."
"Hadn't noticed," said Sam, although she had.
"And then, well, last night, after the wine..."
"What happened after the wine?"
"You don't remember? We, er, well, when I woke up, we weren't wearing much."
Sam smirked to herself. "Don't remember a thing. Sorry." It didn't seem to occur to Daniel that she was playing with him. Then, it very rarely occurred to Daniel that he was being played, not even after all these years. It was sometimes the most endearing thing about him.
Daniel looked so wounded though, that Sam couldn't keep it up any longer. "Hey, kidding. I remember. I really, really remember. I oh my God remember." She tried to keep her voice light.
"So did you, uh, realize that it's not the first time we've done that?"
She shrugged. What the hell. "Of course."
Teal'c's arrival with the doughnuts and a dozen or so airmen was, Sam realized, absolutely necessary. One second longer, and she would have had her hand down Daniel's pants, NID or no, public place be damned. But Teal'c just gave them a raised eyebrow, directed one or two of the airmen as they moved DeLanie from Sam's van to their own specially equipped transport vehicle, and left them to their own devices. The whole operation took no more than a minute, but Sam felt the tension between them subside substantially.
Then, of course, Daniel had to revive it by saying, "Uh, that thing we were talking about before. What if we tried while we weren't drunk? Just a thought."
"Who knows? Maybe you'd actually manage to last longer than..."
"Oh. Uh, sorry about that."
"Well, you can make it up to me anytime."
"Honestly?" said Daniel, his voice getting slightly higher.
"Sure. Why not?"
"We should really get back to Base, shouldn't we? Tell Jack how things went down."
"Do you want to?" Sam asked, and in asking realized that of all the things she didn't want, debriefing with General O'Neill was what she dreaded most. Not only was he crankier than he had any right to be, but when they left, he always stared after them with such a pained look that it was harder and harder to ignore. Coming home from off-world, it felt (she imagined) like visiting her father in the hospital would have been: a pity visit to a wounded man.
"Not really." Daniel had answered her quite awhile ago; now he repeated himself.
"Want a drink?"
"Again, not really."
"My place, then?"
"First you've got to tell me I'm right. We are in love with each other, right?"
"Of course, Daniel. I was wondering when you'd notice."
Part 2: "Speak Friend and Enter"
Now that they'd actually said they were going to have sex, Sam found that fondling the gearshift had a whole new meaning. Especially when she noticed that Daniel was staring at her hand, mesmerized. And once his hand descended on hers, so gently, she was absolutely lost. "I have to drive," she whispered.
"That's okay," Daniel said. "I'm not stopping you."
His fingers were moving so slightly, rippling between hers, so she could feel every tendon in her hand. All right, now that just wasn't fair. She carefully removed Daniel's hand from hers, rested her hand on his thigh for half a second, then turned to face the road. There were fifteen minutes between here and her house, and she'd never before noticed exactly how long those fifteen minutes really were.
Long. They were long.
Especially (she noted out of the corner of her eye) when Daniel was fiddling with his jeans, and there wasn't a lot of loose cloth to fiddle with, and she knew he was too oblivious to be doing it on purpose, so she couldn't even complain. He was unintentionally driving her to distraction.
And then he started talking about work. About the latest society they'd unearthed, and the symbolic meanings of the 'Gate in its art and storytelling, and she realized she knew what he was talking about, that when she said, "But you have to keep in mind how far removed they are from their transplantation, that any historical basis for their myths has essentially been wiped out by hundreds of years of repression," she actually might be making a point worth making.
She could think all this, and drive, and still manage to be more sexually charged when they pulled into her driveway than she had been in years.
Before she got the door open, Daniel had an arm around her, lifting her shirt just half an inch, so that his fingers sprawled over bare skin and Sam's heart started beating a little faster.
She was glad she'd put her key-ring in her pocket--no scrambling for keys, no desperate fumbling, only key in lock and hands on skin and sliding slowly upwards. The door was open now, thank God.
She would have been amazed if they'd made it to the bedroom. As it was, they didn't make it out of the foyer. Daniel had a fascination with her shirt, and getting his hands up underneath it, and she couldn't just allow herself to be caressed, she needed to touch Daniel, to feel his skin the way he was so steadfastly feeling hers, so she twisted around in a move that Daniel obviously still wasn't expecting, even after training with Teal'c every day since he came home. He was totally taken by surprise when her left hand slipped under the waistband of his jeans, her right hand pressed to his zipper, toying with the idea of getting him undressed right then and there.
But first he had to kiss her, the way he had to touch the artifact that clearly screamed "Don't touch!" to her and Teal'c. And even though they'd admitted they were in love, Sam still felt like her lips and his lips and those lips together should be saying "Don't touch!" loud and clear. But Daniel was obviously deaf. He kissed her gently, in blatant defiance of the hands they'd slipped into each other's pants, of his obvious erection, of her now tingling clit. He was going to be gentle, was he? Going to seduce her like they hadn't been doing this (drunk, admittedly) for months, like they hadn't watched each other grow up for seven years. Well, she didn't want that.
She nipped at his lips, easing them apart, then sliding her tongue into his mouth, and it was a surprising cavern. She'd never imagined kissing him, never imagined arching her tongue against his or pressing her legs against him while she did it. She'd never imagined him being afraid to move his tongue, never imagined being able to feel the moan when her right hand finally succeeded in getting his zipper down and stroked his penis, oh so lightly. She leaned into him, into his mouth, into his chest, into his groin, as if she could give him everything she'd carried for so long and he could help her hold it.
He staggered backwards when she bit on his lips, drawing the tiniest trickle of blood. She rubbed her left hand deftly down his legs, not wanting to break the kiss but desperate for more contact, for more sensation, for more Daniel.
He was against the wall, and she liked that, liked holding him there, liked that he seemed to be unable to stop himself from sliding two surprisingly soft hands up her torso to her breasts, liked the way he danced around her breasts before finally touching them, and she groaned "harder, Daniel," and somehow wanted to add, "and that's an order," but didn't have the brainpower to do much beyond push, rub, grab, stroke, gasp.
Lots of gasping tonight. She gasped when he pinched her nipple, gasped as she squeezed his thigh in retaliation, gasped when she realized he was taller than she was, and she moaned in surprised glee when he sank gracelessly to the floor and tugged at her pants. She didn't trust his ability to get her undressed, so she unzipped her own pants, directed his hands to her underpants, and gasped the last complete English words she'd say that night. "Lick me."
And he did, so artlessly, so energetically, so desperately, his tongue twisting and stroking, peeking into her pussy as if to see if it was safe to go further, then retreating in fear. His fingers parted her lips, he was fast and rough and she was wet and aching, her back against the fake-wood wall of her foyer and her brain on a permanent vacation from all thoughts that weren't about Daniel's tongue slipping, sliding, roughly penetrating, licking her labia and her clitoris, teasing and touching and driving her to her first-ever standing-up orgasm, a bliss so certain she didn't really recover, just lolled, sated, against the wall. Daniel fell back with a shy smirk (Daniel, a study in contradictions, Daniel, brother-friend-lover-partner for planets-labs-bars-bedrooms) and tugged his jeans off his muscled legs.
While Sam recovered, Daniel jerked himself off, slowly, his hand wrapped loosely around his cock, and Sam squirmed. She slid down the wall carefully, then crawled over to Daniel, sprawled on the floor, pleasuring himself, still, for some reason, wearing his glasses. She hovered over him for a moment, then removed his glasses and placed them on an artful yet inexpensive side-table, urged him wordlessly to continue, and, with a saliva-covered finger, penetrated Daniel's anus, just slightly, just enough for him to groan and adjust himself and stroke harder, which is what she'd wanted in the first place.
Eventually she'd let him fuck her. She wanted him to fuck her. But mostly right now she wanted to watch him, wanted to see the way he got himself off, wanted to hang over him, breasts dangling, and notice the harshness of his breath and the loss of control, the harsh raspy sound he made when he hit a sensitive spot.
It wasn't the moaning that drove her over the edge. It wasn't his hand on his dick, either. It was the look in his eyes, the sad desperation, which made her think that he hadn't stopped remembering, and that nothing could make him forget. It made her want to try.
She pulled his hand away carefully, lowered herself onto his dick, letting him slide in slowly to her slick readiness. From that position he would be hard pressed to set the pace, so she started sliding, slowly at first, then faster, moving up and down his dick, twisting slightly so that she could get full sensation everywhere. She closed her eyes so she couldn't see Daniel's wide-eyed wonder, so she could just listen to his gasping, rasping moaning, so she could just feel him struggle to push into her, to match her rhythm. She fucked him quickly, but not as roughly as she wanted to, still afraid, perhaps, of injuring the civilian archeologist. When he came inside her, she smiled and jerked once, twice, quickly against him so that she came too, pushing herself over the edge, collapsing on him, realizing belatedly that he was still wearing a shirt and that his jeans were around his ankles.
She rolled off him, found a position that was almost comfortable, and spent most of the night trying to sleep, forgetting to dream, wondering what Daniel was thinking on his side of the floor.
In the morning, she fried turkey sausage and made a whole pot of coffee. The coffee wouldn't last the morning, but at least it was a start.
"Morning, Sam," said Daniel, smiling, and his smile was broad and genuine and broke her heart. "Got any coffee? I'm going to need some to face Jack's wrath."
"He's not going to be pleased, that's for sure. Coffee's in the pot."
Daniel poured himself a cup and drank it thoughtfully. "Do you think we should tell Jack?"
Sam considered this, bearing in mind the look of longing that overtook the General's face every time he bid them Godspeed in the Gateroom, his frustrated request that they not invite him to dinner anymore, the angry lie that was far too close to truth: he was too busy with paperwork and worry.
"No way we should tell him."
"Oh good," said Daniel, and he poured another cup of coffee.